What is marriage?
From a legal standpoint, Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker's decision repealing Proposition 8 and reinstating equal marriage rights in California could not be clearer: Civil marriage with the person of one's choice is an established right under the law. All citizens, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, have equal access to that right and equal protection under that law. Period.
However, we have learned from hard experience that establishing equality under the law does not necessarily translate into acceptance in American life.
What truly will establish marriage equality is widespread recognition of the common values held by most Americans that provide the moral foundation for marriage in our society. Most Americans -- 77 percent -- profess to be Christian in their faith. It is time for Christians, far and wide, to speak out from our faith as clearly as Judge Walker has from the perspective of the law.
This is exactly what Rev. Janie Spahr, Honorably Retired Presbyterian Minister, is doing this week in Napa, CA. Rev. Spahr is being tried by her church for presiding at the weddings of same-gender couples in the summer of 2008, when these marriages were legally recognized by the state of California. The question at hand is what marriage means in the church.
The wedding service in the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Common Worship highlights the fundamental qualities of marriage: to be loving and faithful in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live. The rings are exchanged "as a sign of our covenant in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."
But this vision of marriage, so familiar to us now, is not the historic Biblical model. From start to finish, the Biblical norm for human marriage is patriarchal dominance by the husband/father -- a far cry from the mutual love between equals that most American Christians value in marriage. The idea of mutual love emerges in Scripture in the image of marriage used to describe the loving relationship between God and God's people (Hosea 1-3:5, Ephesians 5:22-25, Revelation 21:2-3).
This Biblical association between God's covenant and marriage picked up speed during the Reformation, inspiring a transformation of marriage in which the equality of the partners as children of God dislodged the hierarchy and set the stage for how we view marriage today.
Christians today accept that Scripture and church history teach that the heart of marriage is the love and commitment between the partners, just as it is the heart of the relationship between God in Christ and each of us.
Rev. Spahr's trial gives us all the opportunity to see that two men or two women, in their profound love and commitment for one another, can exemplify all the qualities we cherish in marriage. For example, Kathryn Mudie and Susan McDaniel have been together 22 years. Kathryn is now retired after 33 years as a registered nurse and Susan works as a physical therapy assistant in a skilled nursing facility. During their years as a couple, they have taken care of all four of their aging parents, each of whom received healthy and loving care.
Then there is Jane Elizabeth, a high school language teacher, and Beth Buckingham-Brown, an ordained Presbyterian minister who also serves on the board of a nonprofit organization that is improving the lives of AIDS orphans. The list of these wonderful couples married by Rev. Spahr goes on and on.
Through Rev. Spahr's trial we have a window onto the lives of many of the couples she married and the way their marriages arise from their faith in God. Their strong marriages sustain their families and their significant service in the world.
So ask yourself, what do you value most about your own marriage, and why?
My view of marriage as a covenant between two people -- including between two men or two women -- arises from my Christian faith. My tradition teaches that, at its core, marriage is about mutual love and committed relationship. It is about caring for family and community, and growing together as individuals and as a couple.
When gay and lesbian couples, like those who will testify this week at Rev. Spahr's trial, find the courage to come out to their community of faith and testify to the sacredness of their relationship with God and one another, they remind us all how much we have in common.
And once we have heard their stories, we as Christians have a responsibility to speak out in our own communities and congregations and remind one another every day what's most important in marriage: the sacred covenant between two people that mirrors our relationship with God.
When we focus on shared values, rooted in our faith, more Americans will support marriage equality. And, as a nation, we will join in what God is already doing--rejoicing when two men or two women who love and cherish each other are wed in holy matrimony.
Marriage equality makes gains with conservatives, GOP
It is prohibited also by other religious traditions, especially Islam.
There are also secular consequences of re-defining marriage that are ignored by proponents.
Truth is, when you say we can justify changing the traditional definition of marriage to expand equality, then there is no end to the cause for "marriage equality".
The next obvious group to seek a re-definition are polygamists. Anyone arguing for same sex marriage will need to also allow polygamist marriages. If it is discriminatory to deny someone marriage because they are of the same sex, then it is also discriminatory to deny a man and his second wife marriage. If the new criteria for marriage is two people loving each other, regardless of gender; then it should include two adults who wish to marry, even if one or more already has a spouse.
Same sex marriages have no affect on my marriage; but destroying the traditional definition of marriage, leaves it open to perpetual re-definition.
Sounds feasible, if you're looking for legal protections.
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You couldn't be more wrong, and I say that as a person who shares your values about equal rights for all when it comes to marriage.
But in order for our shared values to become the shared values of our society, we must STOP trying to make it so by finding common ground in our religions and their dogmas - and focus instead on our shared values as a pluralistic, secular society.
That was the strategy used by David Boies and Ted Olsen in their successful argument overturning Prop 8. Thank goodness they didn't appeal to the shared values of our faith, because they would have gotten their butts kicked by the multituded of "faithful" Christians who think that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.
When ti comes to this question, and many others, the Bible is NOT your friend. Like the Koran, it is an iron age text that contains some good ideas and some very bad ideas right along side one another.
When it comes to civil law, we should NEVER depend on theologians to parse their texts, in order to tell us what is relevant and what is not. In our post-christian society, we have all the tools we need to determine what is right and what is wrong using sources that reflect secular humanism and enlightened thinking.
Legal rights refer to laws. Marriage laws were enacted using the standard definition of marriage.
A re-defining of marriage, well after the marriage laws were put in affect, should necessitate a new set of laws based on a new definition.
Perhaps traditional marriage should remain and some other term, as civil union but not so sterile sounding, would be more appropriate. New laws would then need to be enacted on this new circumstance.
From the new Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: mar•riage
Pronunciation: \ˈmer-ij, ˈma-rij\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English mariage, from Anglo-French, from marier to marry
Date: 14th century
1
a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law
**(2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage **
b : the mutual relation of married **persons** : wedlock
c : the institution whereby **individuals** are joined in a marriage
The definition in the 'latest' dictionaries is not the definition in the dictionary when the various marriage laws were enacted.
I checked a 1980 dictionary, published long after marriage laws were put in place, and the a2 definition you posted is not there.
Civil Unions should be defined as marriage minus conception rights.
If a re-defining of marriage is to be accepted based on a civil rights issue, what about any other current marriage prohibition?
From a civil rights perspective, why could I not marry my single sister so we could enjoy the financial benefits of marriage? Or my brother or even my grandmother?
From a civil rights perspective, how can the polygamous cults be illegal? Don't they have 'rights' too?
What would marriage mean in the future if the current proposed redefinition is accepted and then the next 'discriminated' group demands marriage? People have left their fortunes to their cat when they die. Could they simply have just married the cat?
I know 'slippery slope' is one of those annoying over-used phrases these days but this might be a pretty clear example.
Personally I want to get married because I love someone, want to make a lifetime commitment and want everyone to know. I've never heard any marriage vow mention sex or procreation.
I'm not married, but what I would value about being married as opposed to living with my girlfriend, would be the feeling of official state and societal approval of our having sex and conceiving children together. It certainly wouldn't be of any real useful value - I'd have to assume her student loans, would be on the hook for alimony, wouldn't be easily able to run off with someone else, and wouldn't really gain any practical benefits. But it would be nice, nevertheless, because it would mean everyone approves and accepts us having sex and producing children together. And not just society's approval - it would mean we would no longer be fornicators who could not enter the Kingdom of God.
BUT I WANT TO TELL YOU WHAT YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT MARRIAGE"
5 cents says "Mormon", but maybe it is some other religion that works by guilt and the golden carrot of an afterlife, and convinces its members that they should tell others how to live and love.
No, I'm certainly not Mormon, I'm hardly even Christian. I just happen to know that Jesus said something about fornicators not entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
And where did I tell anyone how to live and love?
Just HEAR THIS LOUD AND CLEAR: This is NOT a religious question. This is a CIVIIL issue. If we want a religious ceremony then we'll find one -- not a X-tian one, m'kay? X-tians have lost their ability and their right to say a meangingful word to GLBTQ people. Just stay out of it.
Second, if you don't want your kids being taught about that tolerance and acceptance, you have every right to pull them out of public schools and send them to a Christian school or home school them. But you do not get to prevent our rights from being trampled over to protect your bigotry and intolerance.
We are better to ignore them
Jesus clearly spoke on what marriage is. Of course people are free to disagree with that view of marriage but mischaracterizing what was said is intellectually dishonest.
and you most certainly do not get to decide who is a Christian -- that is in the heart of each person
B-- Jesus never said "Don't marry Ralph, you will both go to hell"
C-- One can take the great lessons in the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, and INTERPRET them in hin own conscience, as fits the individual and the world of 2010. Much of the Old Testament can be described as "allegory for the times it was written" -- Genesis onward.
Point B-Please read Matthew 19:4-6 and Gensis 2:21-24 for Jesus' view of marriage.
Point C-I would agree with you that parts of the Bible are archaic and no longer apply (especially since we are not ancient Israelites). However, I feel it is a serious error to conclude that if some of the Torah no longer applies, then none of it applies. For example, the topics of bestiality, adultery, fornication, and murder still appear to be relevant.
Its a dangerous thing for anyone to be able to concede what determines one's Christianity. If that was the case, whose standard do we follow? Its not enough to say "The Bible's Standard" as there are many interpretations of scripture that have evolved over time.
Jesus did not clearly speak on what marriage is. Period. The verses which I believe you are referring to is Matthew 19 in which Jesus is referring to Divorce, rather than what marriage is or is not. He was speaking to the pharisees, which raised the question in the context of a man and a woman. Jesus responded appropriate to the example that the pharisees gave.
A clear teaching that says Marriage is between one man and one woman would be "Jesus said 'Marriage is between one man and one woman only.'" That is found nowhere in the scriptures.
Also, if Jesus was who He said He was, then this high Christology would place other passages in the Old and New Testament in the mouth of Christ.
For the rest of us.... eat up.. It's pretty good..
If so....theres condemnation in store for you.
God hates shrimp!
Everyone has had it thrown in their face OVER and OVER and OVER.
Then, you start it -- everyone answers with the Bible quotes about shrimp and linen, on and on and on. Since you cannot find a kind or polite way to say anything, you need to find out how, or be silent, please.
The United States is not a theocracy. Everyone knows that some religious people find some acts of other people offensive, but, in the United States, one does not get to block the rights of others because of one's opinions or beliefs.
IS TERRRIBLY RUDE AND OFFENSIVE
-- If you were not too drunk to read, you would see that I am laughing at the shrimp, etc as nonsense diversions I do not care about
And anyway, the ancient writers of these texts were not qualified to comment on a sexual orientation they could not have understood. These same writers declared that God made the sun stand still so that Joshua and his followers could have enough daylight to slaughter an opposing tribe. Today we know that the sun doesn't move around the earth. That the earth spins. They simply did not understand the reality of planetary movements.
The question is, if they could be so wrong about the sun moving across the sky, how accurate could they be in their understandings of sexual orientation, a reality we've only begun to understand ourselves in the last 75 years or so...
Leviticus is not authoritative in regards to homosexuality in the 21st century, anymore than it is on slavery or the treatment of women.
I don't know about you straight married men out there, but would you proclaim that you love your best friend more than your wives?
The following words are very often read during wedding ceremonies as an example of the deep spiritual commitment that two people should aspire to.
“Intreat me not to leave thee, [or] to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people [shall be] my people, and thy God my God”
This vow was made between two women...
(Ruth 1:16)
IF Jesus felt that same gender attraction was so horribly wretched, this was the perfect opportunity for him to SPECIFICALLY weigh in on the matter, which he chose not to do. this story does NOT end with Jesus exhorting the centurion to "go and sin no more".
there are PLENTY of examples of the affirmation of same gender attraction and even same gender commitment in the bible. the problem is that dogma and fundamentalism has FORCED people NOT to think or read past what was either willfully misinterpreted by the court of king james or is simply there in the bible but ignored because it doesn't fit a heterosexist, bigoted view.
faith and belief are only valuable when they are tested and when minds are open enough to come to newer, more FAITHFUL understandings of the words.
When defining eunochs, Jesus said they were men who could not have sex with women, and there were 3 kinds: The kind of eunuch who was made a eunoch by being castrated... The kind of eunuch who became a eunuch when taking religious vows to abstain from sex in order to 'serve the kingdom of God.' And eunuchs who were 'born that way.'
I know I've read of that somewhere, and to me... if I'm accurate in my memory of it - that is perhaps the most amazing example of Jesus referring to gay men. Of course, some would argue that it could mean men who were born with congenital defects. But I think that happens so infrequently that it wouldn't warrant these few people being mentioned as a group...
My recovery was complete when I quit trying to understand myself in light of some twisted version or another of someone's scripture. My everlasting soul (should such a thing exist) is no one else's business.
Even if you could have good theological conversation and debate with "them" the point remains that we are a secular society with constitutionally ordained separation of church and state. Their religious arguments have for far too long been allowed to control and destroy the lives of homosexuals. It's time to demand it be stopped.
The Book was written over a 5000 year period... it was written in several different languages (Chaldean, Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic), in several different geographic locations and was translated into hundreds of other languages. That's "messing with God's word".
Men have been “messing with God’s word” for centuries. (Council of Nicea, Council at Trent etc.) The book was compiled by committee… We are taught that they were “guided by the Spirit” but if you study the history you find that politics and cultural bias played just as much a part of the formation of the final tome as anything else.
It most certainly does support slavery.
http://etori.tripod.com/slave-verses.html
Its funny that you mention that you preach Jesus because Jesus himself says nothing condemning homosexuality.
We're still here.
I believe this is one of the reasons why many in the Tea Party (Christian Reconstructionists) are advocating doing away with the department of education. They want to control ever single bit of information that kids get in school. They accuse Obama of wanting to open Government run indoctrination camps. It looks to me like they themselves support indoctrination camps. It's called home schooling.
If you don't want your kids learning about things, take them out of public school. Christians do it all the time because they don't want their kids learning about evolution. This is no different.
Don't condescend to tell me that you will approve my marrying my beloved (I already have and didn;t need your approval, thank you very much) and then say all commentary and scientifically factual information on GLBT people needs to be kept from children. Bluntly sexual stuff sure, but not the fact that we exist and that we fall in love and marry, too--oh yeah and some of us are two-mommy or two-daddy families.